The Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation confirmed that a private Egyptian company plans to start importing gas from Israel for re-export during the first quarter of 2019.

The plans to import gas from Israel comes after agreements signed in February 2018 to buy $15 billion worth of gas over the next decade.

The private Egyptian company, Dolphinus Holdings, said that "Imports will start in small quantities first and will gradually increase to reach their climax in September 2019."

No specific prices or quantities were released.

Partners in Israel's Tamar and Leviathan offshore gas fields, which include Delek Group, Isramco and Ratio, agreed with Dolphinus Holdings to provide a total of 64 billion cubic meters of gas over the next ten years.

Half of the supply will come from each field and the proceeds will also be split equally in half.

The start date of exports was not yet set.

The Israeli Minister of Energy, Yuval Steinitz, said that the agreement between Dolphinus Holdings and Israel was Egypt’s most important export deal since the two countries signed the peace treaty in Washington in 1979.

Dozens of Palestinians along with the families of a number of youths who were missing during their travel from Gaza Strip through Rafah crossing staged a sit-in before the headquarters of International Committee of Red Cross in Gaza. They demanded that Egyptian authorities acquaint them on the fate of their sons.

Adnan Abu Watfa, representative of the family of the missing Husam Abu Watfa, told the PIC that the family asked the Egyptian authorities and Egypt's President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi to help unveil the fate of their son who was going to Qatar to visit his sick parents when he was missed.

The family said that they contacted the Palestinian Embassy and the competent authorities, which has led to no positive response in this regard.

For his part, Mahoud Abu Mehliha, told the PIC that they lost contact with his brother, Ayman, after he had reached Cairo International Airport, heading to Rafah crossing, on August 16, 2017 after finishing his PhD study.

Israeli gas fields in the Mediterranean will soon be providing gas exports to Egypt as a part of a 10-year, $15 billion deal announced on Monday.

According to the PNN, Israeli gas excavation companies Delek Drilling and Noble Energy will export roughly seven-billion cubic-meters of gas annually from drilling platforms in the Mediterranean, namely the Leviathan and Tamar gas fields, to Egyptian Company Dolphin Energy for the duration of the deal.

In a public statement posted online, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the deal, adding that it would strengthen ‘security, economy, and regional relationships.’

Some have criticized the deal as being merely symbolic. As of yet, there are no plans for means of exportation of the gas to Egypt.

As reported by the Jerusalem post, the most obvious means, the East Mediterranean Gas line, which runs parallel with the Gaza Strip, was declared insolvent by its parent company, EGS.

‘There’s not even a route determined, so it’s hard to sign a binding agreement,” said Brenda Shaffer, an American-Israeli professor at Georgetown University in Washington in an interview with the Jerusalem Post.

Alternative routes through Jordan would require subsequent negotiations with Jordanian officials before the flow of oil could proceed.The announcement comes amid warming relations between Israel and Egypt.

Earlier this month, an investigation conducted by the New York Times revealed an extensive campaign of airstrikes conducted by the Israeli military in the Sinai Peninsula.

Egyptian armed forces have struggled in recent years to contain the violent insurgency that erupted in the region in 2013 when groups with ties to the Islamic State group emerged. They have since carried out a series of deadly attacks against minority ethnic groups in the peninsula, including Coptic Christians and Sufi adherents, as well as against the Egyptian armed forces.

The Egyptian armed forces have struggled to contain armed groups within the peninsula which remains mostly tribal and comprised of mostly Bedouin communities.

The investigation by the New York Times revealed that security cooperation by Israel and Egypt had exceeded that which was previously made public. Rather, Israel had carried out a number of airstrikes in the region and had taken measures to disguise the fact that the attacks were originating from Israel and not Egypt, principally by adjusting flight paths so as to appear to be coming from Egypt.

The two oil fields in question pose additional challenges to the deal.

The Tamar field is nearing exhaustion and the Levitation field is yet to be operational, with platforms still under construction and expected not to be operational till 2019.

Exportation from the Leviathan field to Egypt would accompany an existing deal made with Jordan in 2016 to supply Jordan with gas from the Leviathan field for a period of 15 years. The deal made with Jordanian National Electric Power Company was worth $10 billion.

Informed sources revealed that Egyptian intelligence director Abbas Kamel affirmed, during his recent meeting with the delegation of Hamas in Cairo, that his country would work on improving the humanitarian situation in the impoverished Gaza Strip.

According to those sources, Egypt will embark on cooperating with the UN and donor countries to put an end to the current deterioration of the humanitarian conditions in Gaza.

Egypt will also take concrete steps regarding the mechanisms used to open the Rafah border crossing with Gaza and the movement of goods, and will allow Egyptian companies to work in Gaza and carry out development projects.

During the meeting with the delegation of Hamas, Egypt’s intelligence chief expressed willingness to send a delegation of security officials to Gaza soon to follow up the Palestinian reconciliation process and the progress that had been made in this regard.

The two sides also confirmed their positions on rejecting any move seeking to expand Gaza at the expense of Egypt’s sovereignty over its territory in Sinai, stressing that such step would never be in “the political dictionary of Egypt or Hamas.”

The meeting between the two sides took place last Tuesday, and they discussed several issues of mutual interest, especially the Palestinian reconciliation, Gaza humanitarian crises, the Rafah border crossing and the mutual relations.

A high-level delegation from Hamas led by Haneyya left last Friday for Cairo through the Rafah crossing following prior arrangements with the Egyptian side.

A Palestinian fisherman was proclaimed dead on Saturday morning after he succumbed to wounds he sustained when Egyptian soldiers opened fire at him the other day off the southern coast of the besieged Gaza Strip.

A spokesman for the health ministry said that 33-year-old Abdullah Zaidan suffered serious bullet injuries on Friday evening after being shot during his presence on his boat off the shore of Rafah area, south of Gaza.

News reports said on Friday that the fisherman, Zaidan, suffered injuries when Egyptian naval forces opened fire him as he was fishing in Gaza waters.